


Model KAZ-2Y5

by awabubbles



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, M/M, Minor Character Death, Separated Winchesters (Supernatural), Sex Robots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:07:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26604937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awabubbles/pseuds/awabubbles
Summary: Sam is a sex android called a Pleasure Model. When he malfunctions during a client visit, the head engineer explains there's something wrong with him and transfers him back to the facility where he was made. There, Sam discovers the awful of truth of what makes him the best selling model of all time.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 141
Kudos: 163





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have little experience writing future or android fic but I tried my darndest so please be kind ❤️ Consider this a love note to all the scifi stuff I grew up with: Blade Runner, Doctor Who, and a dash of Fifth Element.
> 
> Thanks to my beta jerseygirl324.

There’s something wrong with model KAZ-2Y5.

Dr. Brady, the head engineer of Niveus Corp., is here to run a diagnostic check. He wakes model KAZ-2Y5 from the stasis chamber at 2200 hours to inform the model his creators had some concerns about his last Engagement. 

Dr. Brady waits for model KAZ-2Y5’s systems to come back online, waits for the cryo-gel that suspends him during sleep mode to drain. After the chamber empties, a sharp blast of air dries the model’s synthetic skin. Then the maintenance plug at the back of his neck, connecting the model to the mainframe like an umbilical cord, is finally disengaged. Freed, the glass of his stasis chamber is lowered and model KAZ-2Y5 steps down from the platform.

“How may I pleasure you today?” he asks—an automated response.

“Diagnostics,” Dr. Brady repeats. 

He wears a white lab coat with a Niveus pin on the lapel: six hexagons encircling a seventh with the name NIVEUS in gold. His head is down, studying a tablet in his hands. Beside him, model KAZ-2Y5 stands in the nude, pale skin shimmering under the fluorescent light. 

“We had a complaint from your last customer,” Dr. Brady begins, “so I’ve just downloaded your neural scan and here it is, clear as day: an abnormality at exactly 1350 hours, during your session with the customer. Interestingly it’s in response to external stimuli so in order to figure out what went wrong, I’ll need to take a look at your visual feed.”

Dr. Brady’s tablet projects a screen in front of them. It’s a memory recorded by model KAZ-2Y5 earlier that day. It was uploaded to the mainframe and deleted from his personal data banks directly after the Engagement. He stands and rewatches his own memory alongside the head engineer.

The recording shows model KAZ-2Y5 inside a room within the Pleasure Suite: dark wallpaper, leather sofas, red curtains and copies of OldEarth paintings in golden frames. At the center there is a four poster bed, oak, ornately carved. Then the model’s customer enters. He’s a middle-aged man dressed in an expensive suit. A digital timer appears over the door: two hours. It’s below average, but Model KAZ-2Y5’s time is precious. As the highest grossing Pleasure Model at the Suite, two hours with him costs at least twenty eight thousand credits.

“Beautiful,” the business man says. “Stunning. Perfectly realistic, just like you were advertised.”

The customer’s face balloons inside the digital feed as he leans in to inspect his purchase. “Soft skin, wet lips, and not a seam on your body. I could easily mistake you for a human.”

Dr. Brady smiles as he watches. The praise pleases him. He had a heavy hand in designing KAZ-2Y5, Niveus Corp.’s most realistic model to date. Designed to resemble an eighteen-year-old boy, KAZ-2Y5’s skin is soft, textured, and warm to the touch. With finite attention to detail he also has hairs on his arms and moles across his body like small splatters of paint. His brown hair is loose and long, curling around his pink-tipped ears and hanging over hazel eyes that change color in the light. His internal programming is also state of the art. KAZ-2Y5 can exchange interesting and intelligent conversation, mimic human responses to pleasure, and, his highest-rated addition, cry in response to pain.

Niveus’s latest model was released to wild acclaim and record sales.

Onscreen, KAZ-2Y5’s customer begins to test what he has paid for. He unbuckles his pants and drops his trousers. His penis looms large in the recording: swollen, purple. His balls are also heavy and unnaturally engorged.

“Modified,” Dr. Brady notes, typing on his tablet.

Surgical modifications with synthetic parts: they’ve become increasingly popular for the general population. Sixty-percent now have some kind of “inessential” synthetic mod. But this increase has also had a political backlash. Fearing some kind of “robot” take over, a group—both religious and political—called the Naturalists, has demanded a cap. They spearheaded the passage of the 70:30 law in the NuSenate. This law makes it illegal for any human to be augmented with more than 30% synthetic parts.

In the case of KAZ-2Y5’s customer, testicular modification and penile enhancement means he’s already at 20. 

Back on the screen, the client's penis disappears inside model KAZ-2Y5’s oral cavity. For this part, Dr. Brady puts the video on mute.

KAZ-2Y5 is a Pleasure Model, built to gratify human sexual desire. Legally, though, it can’t be advertised as sex. What happens between a human and synthetic is called “engaging”. Clean, clinical, sanitary: the politicians of NuNuYork adopted the term quickly. Thus, the Pleasure Suite was born, catering to every human whim, every twisted little taste. Tall, short, skinny, fat, tiny tits, or big vibrating dicks: there are hundreds of choices at any one of the thousand locations spread across the seven systems. But it is only here, at the very first Suite built in NuNuYork, that you can find model KAZ-2Y5. He is the rare gem of their collection, the only model of his kind. That’s why his upkeep, and his customer reviews, are taken so seriously.

“Shit, we missed this.”

Dr. Brady pauses the recording. Fifty minutes into the two hour session and the client has wrapped his hands around KAZ-2Y5’s throat and started to squeeze. Choking is rated as a mild fetish but every sexual interest is required to be listed when a client first enrolls; all the better to fit them with a model that best suits their needs. Some models are designed for abuse, but KAZ-2Y5 is not. He’s delicate. One-of-a-kind. If a customer lists choking on their fetish list then KAZ-2Y5 is retracted from their list of options. Knowing this, the businessman must have lied.

“Thirteen-hundred and fifty hours,” Dr. Brady says, noting the time on the video. “Right after that your cortisol levels spike, there's a burst of adrenaline. This is when the abnormality occurs.”

They continue watching the recording. The customer is still choking his purchase when model KAZ-2Y5 reaches out his own hands and starts choking the customer as well. As a Synthetic, he’s much stronger.

The customer immediately turns blue in the face. Recognizing the human distress signal inside the Pleasure Room, the main computer sends a signal that immediately freezes KAZ-2Y5’s systems. It’s an automatic safeguard to ensure customer safety and it probably saves this customer’s life. He pushes the Synthetic away from him, gasping for air. But he isn’t dissuaded from getting the most out of his purchase. After color returns to his face, and with over an hour left, KAZ-2Y5’s customer chooses to flip the model’s frozen body over and satisfy himself with the anal cavity.

Dr. Brady ends the recording. Removing his glasses, he pinches the skin between his brows.

“I admit that a choker shouldn’t have slipped through our screening methods but the more serious problem here is your _reaction_ . It’s violent and in complete contradiction to your programming! Even more troubling: it’s not the first time. Within the last three months you’ve had two other incidents, each in response to what I would classify as only _mild_ abuse. Tasked to fix the problem I’ve tried to adjust your hormone levels and calibrate your personality sequence, but so far, nothing has worked. Now the president himself is starting to get nervous. I’m afraid the only thing left to do is to recall you to Niveus Corp.”

A monopoly on Synthetic technologies, Niveus Corp. sits at the north end of the city. New models are shipped out, and old models are brought back: their birthplace and burial site.

“Am I going to be deactivated?” KAZ-2Y5 asks. 

Dr. Brady’s eyes go wide, as if the model had asked after his own death. “No, no!” he insists, hurriedly. “This is only for repairs, Sam. I promise. To make you better, okay? To make you _perfect_.”

Sam. Dr. Brady refers to him as the name of his series when he’s being sentimental. Every Synthetic model is made in a series. From the series they’re assigned an individual number. But KAZ-2Y5 is also the only model in his series. For the time being “Sam” refers to him, and him alone. Dangerously similar to a human name.

“You’re so precious, Sam,” Dr. Brady explains. “Not just to Niveus Corp. but to me, personally. I would never let anybody hurt you. You believe me don’t you?”

KAZ-2Y5 mimics Dr. Brady’s smile. His programming executes the best response to please the engineer. “Yes. I believe you.”

“I’m to deliver you to Niveus Corp. at 2100 hours tonight,” says Dr. Brady, glancing at his watch. “I could have done that with you in sleep mode, but as you can see I’ve chosen to activate you for the ride over which will give us approximately forty-five minutes to be alone, together.”

The head engineer brushes the model’s lips with his thumb, tucks a piece of hair back into place. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you Sam?”

“Whatever pleases you Dr. Brady,” the KAZ-2Y5 responds.

“Good. Now follow me.”

Dr. Brady types a code into the wall-mounted keypad at the opposite end of the room and the door to KAZ-2Y5’s storage chamber opens. He leads them down a narrow, white corridor with dozens of doors. Behind each door, another Pleasure Model is in sleep mode.

At the end of the hall there is a set of elevators: two for Synthetics who are to be brought to a customer’s room, and one restricted to staff use only. A yellow sign above the elevator warns against Synthetic use. Dr. Brady ignores it and ushers himself and KAZ-2Y5 inside, pressing the button for the loading dock, where he is also not allowed. 

“Error,” KAZ-2Y5 reports. “Stepping into a non-synthetic zone should automatically freeze my systems. However, I continue to operate.”

“You’re offline,” Dr. Brady explains. “The Pleasure Suite’s mainframe enforces those rules. But if you’re not connected, it doesn’t detect a violation. You and I are traveling incognito, Sam, undetected. That’s why your tracking chip has also been disabled.”

The freight elevator opens to the loading dock and they exit.

“Think of it as a secret mission,” Dr. Brady continues. “Niveus wants to fix you and get you back into your stasis chamber before the Suite knows you're missing. They get panicky when we take you offsite, start asking what we’re doing. All the data related to your upkeep is encrypted, though, and for good reason. So honestly, the less questions the better.”

The loading dock is on the 45th floor of the Pleasure Suite tower. It’s a warehouse level stacked floor-to-ceiling with open-top shipping containers. KAZ-2Y5 doesn’t have to ask what’s inside, he knows: they're filled with Pleasure Models. Half are brand new releases, waiting to be polished and introduced to their first clients. The other half are filled with retired models, cast aside until the container is filled with their bruised and broken bodies. The retired models are then sent back to Niveus where they are disassembled and sold as parts. What doesn’t get sold is dumped in the trash.

One day, KAZ-2Y5 will end up in a shipping container just like this. It’s every Pleasure Model’s fate. 

Finally, they arrive at the end of the loading dock. One out of three doors is rolled-open and there, hovering on the cement dock, is a black car, a stretch. Behind it, the city of NuNuYork races by: loud, congested. 

They get inside the car. Vinyl seats stretch out along the left-hand side, all the way to the front where there is an automated driving system, a projected map of NuNuYork on the dashboard. Dr. Brady enters coordinates on his tablet. A computerized voice accepts and thanks them for using the service. On the right-hand side there’s a bar, illuminated in blue light. Dr. Brady unbuttons the front of his collar and starts to make himself a drink. 

They exit the Pleasure Suite into the otherworldly glow of the city of NuNuYork, teaming with life. They pull out of the dock and into a sea of traffic: personal crafts, blue buses, and yellow taxi cabs layered on top of each other over 100 stories high. There are so many people! Humans sell wares, hand-crafted items, or food like rare fruits with pink interiors and giant vegetables. Between the floating gondolas of goods are takeout restaurants. Customers on stools shoveling bowls of steaming noodles into their mouths on one side. The other, a line of hovercars waiting to grab their meal and go. And everything is lit in neon. Neon signs for bars, clubs, even banks with low-low rates! Where there isn’t traffic there’s a sign: advertisements projected onto buildings, hovering on top of or on the sides of the cars driving past. Blinking. Flashing. On repeat.

The largest of these signs is a billboard stretched across the entire side of a building. It’s an advertisement for the Pleasure Suite they’re leaving behind. _Pleasure Models inside!_ It flashes. _Sexy, obedient, programmable._ And then there’s a picture of Sam’s face. _Try our latest model. A living doll. So realistic you’d swear he was human!_ A video plays, one of Sam on a luxurious set of sheets blinking seductively at the camera. Then prices. Money back guarantees. 

“We’ve got a lot riding on you, Sam. You’re a whole new kind of Pleasure Model. Something we’re still trying to patent.”

Dr. Brady drapes his arm across the back of the vinyl seats. Takes a sip of his drink. “That’s why everything around you is so secretive. Why we’re taking a trip to Niveus in the middle of the night.”

The advertisement for the Pleasure Suite ends, switches to a giant wanted sign for a dangerous criminal. Naturalist. Terrorist. And a 3 million credit reward if he’s turned in dead or alive. It displays a picture of a man, half half-human and half-synthetic, as if a line had been drawn down the center of his skull. KAZ-2Y5 stares at the rendering, suddenly disoriented as if his processors are trying to pull a piece of data, hidden, buried. Searching. Searching. But no results. 

Then the sign changes again and their hovercar races past.

“The only thing standing between us and a revolution in synthetics are the Naturalists.”

Dr. Brady, again. Had he been talking this whole time? KAZ-2Y5 turns away from the window and dismisses the temporary glitch.

“They want to stunt human progress by keeping us in the past,” Dr. Brady says. “They say it’s a moral point of view, even a religion. But they’re terrorists, every last one of them. They’ve even got temples stationed outside every Pleasure Suite to dissuade customers. Look.”

They’re at the top layer of traffic now, high up in the skies of NuNuYork where the twin moons loom and the city sparkles like stars. That’s where the Naturalist temple waits. Just past the Suite and at the center of a traffic roundabout is a hovering church: a long thin tower with a spire at the top. Attached to the spire is a neon cross with four words blinking sequentially in the crossbar: HEAVEN IS FOR HUMANS.

“An ancient appeal to the human soul,” Dr. Brady explains. “How much can we change before we’re not ourselves? Before we lose what makes us human. That’s why they passed the 70:30 law. Seventy percent human, thirty percent synthetic.”

Hundreds of hovercars circle the spire. It’s ominous message flashing silently into the night.

“But that didn’t stop Niveus Corp. We found a loophole.” Dr. Brady leans in close, touches the model’s cheek. “That’s why you’re so precious, Sam. You’re our loophole. The future.”

The ice clinks in Dr. Brady’s glass. Sam’s sensors detect a flush in the engineer’s cheeks, the widening of his pupils: an effect of the alcohol.

“A future I helped build, and yet, not one I’m ever allowed to touch.” 

Dr. Brady suddenly pulls KAZ-2Y5 towards him and greedily presses their mouths together. KAZ-2Y5 is offline, that’s what Dr. Brady had said. So if he’s illegally engaged, it won’t register. 

“Turn over. On your knees. Quick.”

The model obeys. He turns his back to the engineer, knees sinking into the leather seats. Dr. Brady grabs his hair, presses KAZ-2Y5’s face into the glass. He lays his body over him, arousal brushing against the model’s backside. 

“The Naturalists are wrong,” Dr. Brady whispers, harsh and hot. “Humans are just parts, the same as synthetics. Flesh, and blood, and bone: natural resources to be disassembled and reassembled into whatever shape we see fit. Athletes. Soldiers. Or maybe...Pleasure Models?”

The city of NuNuYork rushes past. Behind him, Dr. Brady unbuckles his belt. 

“Because if they were right, Sam, you would _fight_ this. You would still have a soul pressed between your wires and flesh. But you don’t, do you? You lie there and take it like such a good little boy.”

There’s a pounding in his chest. His sensors indicate his heart is beating faster, his breath, more erratic. Dr. Brady spreads his anal cavity wide. KAZ-2Y5 remembers the video of his last engagement, the twisted face on his client, his own hands around their neck. Squeezing. Tighter. Tighter. He’s about to be engaged. It’s what he’s made for. Wasn’t it? Dr. Brady whispering about human parts doesn’t compute. And yet. A voice, like a command in the back of his head screams _no_ at the engineer's touch. A deafening pitch. Drowning out everything else.

“Aaaaagh!”

Suddenly the weight of Dr. Brady is lifted from his back. Followed by silence. KAZ-2Y5 opens his eyes to find the head engineer has been flung to the other side of the limo, pants still unbuckled, limp. Did he do that? _Did he hurt Dr. Brady?_

“Now arriving at Niveus Corp. You will be docking soon. Please remain seated until the vehicle comes to a complete stop.”

The autopilot makes him jump. The hovercar is approaching an enormous white building wrapped in two sheets of spiraling glass. At the top, Niveus Corp. is written in bright blue neon. They’d arrived.

“Thank you for choosing Uber. Please have a safe day.”

The hovercar enters a parking garage on the lower level and stops at the offloading zone. The doors unlock. Model KAZ-2Y5 climbs out of the limo to find himself face-to-face with the president of Niveus Corp. itself, Crowley.

“Sam.”

The President is a short man with a thick beard and thinning hair, dressed in a well-tailored suit. He studies his prized Pleasure Model with narrowed eyes. Two security models—stripped down, no synthskin just bare parts and guns for hands—stand beside him.

“You were supposed to be asleep, transported in a truck. What’s this?”

No need to ask, the answer is obvious when Crowley inspects the limo to find his head engineer out cold with his pants around his ankles.

“Tut, tut. Playing with the merchandise, I see. How very naughty.” Crowley shakes his head. The second security model pulls Dr. Brady out of the limo and the President shuts the door. “I’ll deal with Dr. Brady later. For now, I have a patient that must be prepped for surgery.” 

With a snap of the President’s fingers the security model holding Sam activates his sleep mode and the world goes black.

  
  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
  


When Model KAZ-2Y5 wakes up again he’s in the middle of an operating theatre, bright, with glaring lights. His limbs are stretched and restrained to a metal gurney and there’s an IV of synthblood injected into his right arm. A monitoring machine beeps steadily off to the side, connected to white sensor pads on his chest where there’s a large, gaping hole.

“Pass the scalpel.”

He’s surrounded by six surgeons, all dressed in blue paper gowns covering their mouths and their hair. They reach a latex-covered hand into the hole: skin peeled back, synthetic ribs removed. His internal sensors show a rapid rise in his heart beat again. _Thump-thump-thump!_ With a hole cut into his chest, he can see it. His heart: a pulpy, fleshy mass. Red, bloody. Organic.

A human part. There's a human part inside of him!

“W-what is _that_?!”

The surgeons freeze. They hadn’t expected their patient to wake out of sleep mode. At the end of the table one removes his mask. It’s Crowley. 

“Stay very still, pet. We’re just here to fix you, a broken part that simply needs to be replaced. See?”

The president of Niveus Corp. motions to a vat set on a table beside the gurney. It’s a new heart of fresh transparent micro-flesh, blue veins stretched over it like spider webs. Synthetic, unlike the thing already inside of him. 

“But it’s human,” KAZ-2Y5 protests. “This _thing_.”

“Human parts grafted over a Synthetic frame,” Crowley confirms. “Not Human becoming Synthetic but Synthetic becoming Human. The perfect loophole to the 70:30 restriction. Of course there’s been problems syncing the two. Glitches. Like choking your customer, or waking up during sleep mode. So we keep cutting the human pieces out to get the balance right.”

The bloody mass in the model’s chest beats furiously. 

“Which human?” KAZ-2Y5 asks.

“You!” Crowley laughs. “The _you_ , you. Before all of this,” he says, waving at the hole in the model’s chest. “You welcomed it, too. A sick boy with a family desperate to save him. They came to me, to Niveus. They thought I was going to hand them back their sweet little boy but I saw the perfect opportunity to revolutionize Synthetics, and I took it!”

Sam lays there in shock. 

He’d been made from a human. A boy. With a name, family, memories, a life. A soul that was its own, and could choose for itself. And all of it destroyed to build a bot for pleasuring men.

“You should thank me,” Crowley insists. “Before me you were nothing. Some whining, dying brat. And now? You’re part of the history books, Sam. The first, true, hybrid.”

Hybrid. Or freak? 

“Hush. Don’t look so scared, pet.” Crowley assures. He puts his mask back on, blending into the crowd of surgeons. “After we’re done you won’t remember a thing. You’ll wake up right back in your stasis chamber, ready to serve.”

“No!” Sam protests. How could they tell him something so awful and then just send him back? But the surgeons don’t listen. They prepare to rip the human heart from his chest and Sam is helpless to stop them. Just a bot. Just a toy for them to tinker and tool with so he turns his head, closes his eyes and waits.

It all happens so fast. 

Screams! Not his but the surgeons as a blinding light suddenly fills the room. They bump into each other in the confusion, sending the tank with his replacement heart crashing to the floor. 

Then something bursts through the walls of Niveus. Rips through walls and glass. Debris flies over Sam’s head. The surgeons themselves duck under his gurney and cry out in terror. It happens so suddenly. And then, nothing. Blackness, silence. Sam can’t see anything but he can hear a door opening (was it a hovercar that had barreled through Niveus?) and the crunching of glass underfoot. 

Then, Crowley: shrunken, terrified. “No. _You_!” 

A new man answers back, gravel in his voice. “That’s right, Crowley. I’m here to take back what you stole from me.”

“You’re too late,” Crowley spits. “He’s not even human anymore. He’s a Pleasure Model and he belongs to _me_. To Niveus!” 

“He’ll never belong to you.” 

_Schwatck!_ The sound of a laser gun is clear as day. A body drops to the floor. Crowley’s? The surgeons hiding beneath him cry out in fear. They abandon his gurney and run towards an exit Sam can’t see. He’s left there, on his back, bloody heart beating wildly in his chest as the man with a gun approaches him.

“Sammy?”

Half human, half synthetic, like a line drawn down the center of his face: It’s the man from the wanted sign! The sign Sam saw in the hovercar on the way to Niveus. There’s a black cloak draped over his shoulders, a hood over his head, but the resemblance is clear as day. Not only is the right half of his face synthetic but his right arm, and leg, as well. The arm is transformed into a laser blaster. The one that just shot Crowley!

“Please,” Sam begs. There are tears in his eyes after seeing the blaster. “Don’t hurt me.”

The wanted man grimaces, lowers the blaster. As he does, it converts back into a normal arm. 

“You’re confused. I get that. And I can explain everything later, but not right now,” the wanted man says, gentle but urgent. “The Blackcoats’ll be here soon and I need every second to sew you back up again. I’m sorry for this kiddo, I really am.”

The wanted man dips a hand beneath Sam’s neck. Before he can protest, his sleep mode is triggered. Once again, his world goes black.

  
  



	2. Part 2

Sam’s awakened by a knock to the head. He opens his eyes in the backseat of a hovercar that’s taking a violent right, throwing him against one side of the vehicle and then the other as it swerves around oncoming traffic—terrified beeps from the approaching cars. In the driver’s seat is the wanted man. Outside, Blackcoat sirens blare. 

Another right! Left! Swerving to avoid a shipping truck. 

Sam clings to the seat, eyes wide with terror. He finds himself dressed in one of the blue paper gowns the Niveus surgeons had been wearing. His internal sensors analyze the heart inside him: soft tissue, red blood cells, organic. He pulls the gown down to reveal a cross shaped line of sutures stitching his chest back together. They tingle. Sam touches them. Red, angry. It's an odd sensation, like a current of electricity running through him. 

Another hard turn throws him against the opposite side of the car. 

“You’re awake!” The wanted man adjusts his rearview mirror to look at Sam. “Listen, just stay down. We’ve almost lost ‘em!”

As he says this a swarm of unmarked hovercars appear behind them. Their flashing lights are so bright, Sam has to shield his eyes.

“What are you doing?” he shouts over the sirens. “Where are you taking me?”

The wanted man curses under his breath at the ambush. More Blackcoats. “Would you believe me if I said I was rescuing you?”

Rescue? Sam looks out the back window. Niveus Corp. is a tiny dot on the horizon they’re racing away from. The flickering neon sign at the top is calling him back. Blink. Blink.  _ Bang _ . Suddenly the building explodes! Niveus is consumed in flames, a bright orange inferno on the top floor. Sam’s eyes go wide. He shrinks from the sight.

“Call it a parting gift,” the wanted man says: a grim confession.

Sam’s heart beats wildly in his chest but there’s no time for fear. They’re still on the run. The wanted man twists their escape car, dodging traffic. Except the traffic is starting to clear--confusion, caused from the explosion--and it gives the Blackcoats an opening to fire. A rain of laser bullets strikes their rear.

They’re hit! The car shakes. Black smoke pours out from under the hood.

“Hull compromised,” the automated voice warns. “Systems at critical. Please enact an emergency landing.”

Behind them, the Blackcoats are closing in. The wanted man is desperately flipping switches and pressing buttons on the dash, swearing beneath his breath.

“Okay kid,” he shouts. “Grab onto the seat in front of you because I’m about to do something really  _ fucking _ stupid!”

Sam fumbles to hang onto the driver's seat in front of him just before the wanted man tilts the steering wheel and swings the entire hovercar down 90 degrees. Suddenly they’re vertical and hurtling straight towards the ground. The wanted man cuts through layers of traffic, twisting and turning to avoid the streams of cars. Down and down they go, descending the heights of NuNuYork. The lower they go the dimmer it gets. Advertisements start to disappear, floating restaurants. Bright neon lights are scattered, fewer and farther between. Only thirty stories high and the city is murky, nearly pitch black. But still they keep descending, to the very bottom. 

“Straightening out now. Hang on to your tits!”

Finally, the wanted man jerks the wheel up and the car straightens out with a screeching halt. Sam is thrown to the floor again but at least they’re right side up.

“You okay back there?” 

Sam hefts himself onto the back seat, looks around. There’s pavement beneath the hovercar. Actual, physical ground. The street is narrow, dark. Two skyscrapers butt up against them on either side, night sky blocked by a thick layer of smog. It’s the undercity. A place Sam has only heard of in hushed whispers: full of homeless criminals, low lifes, street urchins and penniless hustlers that can’t afford an apartment past the 30th floor. 

“What are we doing here?” Sam asks. 

“Hiding,” the wanted man answers. “After the stunt I just pulled they’re gonna be on red alert for a few weeks. But I know a place we can crash, just up ahead.”

The car shifts into gear. Still spewing smoke from the hood, they drive down the broken pavement of the undercity. The streets are lined with dumpsters. The dumpsters are filled with trash. The trash is filled with rats and rabid dogs alike, looking for a meal. Sam shivers, turns his attention to the man in the driver’s seat. His kidnapper, or his rescuer, he has yet to decide.

“I saw you on that wanted poster,” Sam says. “Dead or alive. You’re some kind of criminal, aren’t you?”

“Depends on your definition of criminal,” the wanted man deflects. “If you're King John, Robinhood’s probably a real pain in your ass.”

“But it said you were a terrorist,” Sam adds. 

“Anybody that hates Niveus is labeled a terrorist.”

“And you murdered Crowley.”

Wrong again, apparently. The wanted man shakes his head. “You can’t murder an animal. I put him down, like a dog.”

Sam huffs. “You  _ blew up  _ Niveus!”

“And. What? You’re sad about that?” the wanted man scoffs. “They experimented on you, Sam!”

The wanted man slams on the brakes at this exclamation. Sam’s hands shake. A weight on his chest, his feet tingling just like the tips of his fingers. There’s something wrong with him. Still something wrong, but he can’t break down. Not here in the undercity, in front of the wanted man. He has to escape.

“Let me go!” Sam demands. Jiggling the car handle he finds the door locked. “Let me out!”

“It’s not safe for you out there,” the wanted man insists, turning in his seat, hand on Sam, trying to stop him.

Sam shrinks from his touch. “I’m not safe with you, either,” he spits.

The wanted man recoils, like he’d been struck. Turning back in his seat, he unlocks the door and Sam spills out onto the street, knees digging into the jagged asphalt. The wanted man exits the car as well. Above them, the sound of sirens makes them pause. Loud, then slowly fading.

“If you want to leave, you can leave,” the wanted man says. “But just listen to me for a second, okay? We’re in the undercity, Sam. The people that live here are vultures; they’ll pick you apart and leave the bones. Your best shot at getting out of this—not as a doll back at the Pleasure Suite or as scrap metal in a chop shop—is to stick with me. Cause I swear to the goddesses Sam, if you only knew. I would  _ never _ hurt you.”

Sam can’t form an argument right now, he can’t even stand. His legs are shaking, his hands, and chest, eyes out of focus, heavy breathing. His internal sensors are all over the place. The tingling in his hands and feet has spread. His whole body is alive with that same electric current. It’s overwhelming. He can’t move.

“Sammy?” The wanted man kneels by his side, hands hovering over him, hesitant to touch after that last rejection. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Where to begin? “System….malfunction,” Sam reports. “E-error. Error.”

“C’mon. Let’s get you out of here.”

No longer hesitating, the wanted man picks him up and puts him back into the car. They edge along the streets until the wanted man finally pulls into an alleyway and, scooping Sam up into his arms, he races down the narrow gap between buildings until he finds a double metal door with no handles. Then he pounds on it with his synthetic fist. A slat in the middle shifts to the side, two beady eyes from the dark looking them both up and down.

“Is Tev around?” the wanted man presses. “I need him. Now.”

“No,” beady eyes answers. “But he’s been expecting you. You’re Dean, right? The--”

“Yeah, that’s me,” the wanted man rushes, looking behind him warily. “And don’t make me say your stupid password, D’aryl.”

Beady eyes grunts, finally opens the door and the wanted man whisks them both inside without another word, rushing them down a crumbling hallway with low-hanging fluorescent lights. At the very end he stops in front of a door that scans his retina, unlocks. Inside, there’s a studio apartment. Bare, concrete walls and floors with a wireframe bed pushed up against the wall. That’s where the wanted man deposits him. 

“It’s okay, you’re going to be okay,” the wanted man insists. “The neuro dampeners are wearing off. Your whole system was pumped full of it, and now it’s waking up. There might be a lot of that pins-and-needles feeling at first, but I promise you're going to be fine. It’s not an error, here.”

There’s a kitchenette in the corner. The wanted man grabs a bottle of water from a mini fridge and holds it out for Sam to drink.

“I don’t require hydration,” Sam refuses, pushing the bottle away.

“Yes. You do. You always did but you never felt any of it before. So  _ drink _ .”

The wanted man presses the water against his lips and this time Sam allows it, opens his mouth. It runs down his throat and trickles over his lips. He can only swallow a mouthful before he pushes the bottle away again with a gasp. His internal sensors measure the temperature of an object, understand the viscosity of liquid, but this is something different. He can  _ feel _ it. Taste it. Smell it. Sam examines his hands, the tingling in the tips of his fingers, in awe.

“Neuro dampeners are an anesthetic,” the wanted man explains. “They numb the body to pain, sensation. It’s reserved for major surgery but they had you pumped full of it while you were plugged in to that stasis chamber. Neuro dampeners to numb you, and nutrients to feed you. All the while telling you that you’re some kind of advanced Synthetic designed to please men. But you’re not, Sam. You’re human.”

“Human parts grafted over a Synthetic frame,” Sam repeats. That’s what Crowley had said.

“Not just human parts,  _ human _ . Sam Winchester. That’s your name. That’s who you are.”

The tingling has started to fade leaving Sam free to run the tips of his fingers over his own thighs, brushing the bits of asphalt still stuck to his knees. The world is opening to him, all at once, like a flower blooming in the night.

“Human,” he muses. “And yet I have processors and a data core. Like a computer.”

“So do I,” says the wanted man, tapping the synthetic side of his face. “Had all of my memories digitized and stored in here. Plus the last 2,000 years of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame history, but I got a two-for-one special on that.” 

That wanted man grins, like it’s funny. Like everything’s funny. Staring into the void and laughing.

“Are my memories stored elsewhere?” Sam asks. Hopeful. Parts of him are still floating around the Pleasure Suite but it's not the memories of engagements he wants. He’s not sure he even wants the one he has.

“No,” the wanted man says. “I hacked into Niveus’s mainframe and read about everything they did to you. It was a total mindwipe, Sam. There’s nothing left.”

Hopes dashed, a strange hole left in its wake. Emptiness. The absence of memory.

“So the boy is gone, then? This ‘Sam Winchester’,” he asks. “His body. His mind. I am only what’s left: a corrupted copy.”

The wanted man frowns. He studies Sam with narrowed eyes, leaning so close that their faces are only a few inches apart. The wanted man touches him, organic hand cupping Sam’s cheek. Gentle. Caressing. Sam can feel the warmth in his palm. His first human touch: of a human, as a human. It sends a gentle shiver down his spine. 

“You can’t get rid of Sam Winchester that easily,” the wanted man assures. “You’re still him. I know it.”

Sam looks into his eyes. Never noticed before, how brilliantly green the organic one is. How intense. Or the smattering of freckles on his cheek, the full lips. And he never noticed the burns either; scarred skin just at the edges of where the synthetics layer over, embed. The synthetics themselves are a patch-work of different sizes, models, colors, finishes--as if assembled from spare parts.

“Who are you?” Sam wonders aloud. A murderer and a rescuer, half human and half synthetic, just like him.

“Nobody,” the wanted man dismisses. “Just a friend.” He shies away from the question, shies away from Sam by distancing himself from the bed and sitting on a set of crates in the middle of the room, set up as a table and some chairs.

Sam wonders if he did something wrong, but he still feels inexorably drawn to the wanted man. He swings his legs over the side of the bed, cold concrete floor on his bare feet. 

“Whose friend?” he asks. “Mine?”

The wanted man laughs. “You want to be friends? I thought you weren’t safe with me,” he reminds.

Sam only shrugs. It’s illogical but he’s consumed with curiosity. “That was an estimate based on a fluctuating set of data points. I may have a new estimate now.”

The wanted man regards him carefully. “I’m a friend of your family,” he clarifies. “When they told me what happened I...volunteered. You see, I had a little brother too, about your age. But he died in a fire. Nobody could confirm it and the police barely investigated it but I know it was Crowley. It killed my dad and my little brother, both. I survived, though sometimes I wish I didn’t.”

The burn marks, the synthetic parts to replace lost limbs. There’s a swelling in Sam’s chest. Some new emotion or feeling he doesn’t have words for yet. “Do you wish you’d saved him? Your brother?”

“Even if I did, he wouldn’t recognize me.”

Such a curious response! Like in the car, earlier. Evading questions. Answers leading to even more questions.

“Is it because of your face?” Sam stands, approaches the wanted man who tenses, but doesn’t move.

Sam stands in front of him. He mimics the wanted man from earlier, leaning in, gently touching the organic side of his face. Does it make him feel the same way as Sam? Strange. But nice. Like a fluttering in his stomach. He hopes so. He wants the wanted man to feel something nice.

“You can’t get rid of yourself that easily,” Sam repeats. “You’re still him, I know it.”

The wanted man trembles under his palm.

“It’s not as good because I don’t know your name,” Sam insists. “I wish you’d tell me. Since you already know mine.”

Sam begins to lower his hand but the wanted presses it back to his own cheek again. Sighs. “It’s Dean,” he says. Finally. “My name’s Dean.”

Sam smiles, feels his heart light like a balloon inside his chest. “Dean,” he says, testing the name on his tongue, the weight, the taste of it. “It’s nice to meet you, Dean.”

Dean’s organic eye is wet, red-rimmed. An infinite well of sadness. “Yeah,” he says. “It’s nice to meet you too, Sam.”


	3. Part 3

Sam likes Dean. That’s the word for it, he thinks. So many words attached to the feelings in his gut, Sam is still learning to name them all. Like. Not hate, not annoyed. Those all imply things that hurt, that make you go _ow_! (like that time Sam burned his tongue on some coffee, drinking it too eagerly, trying to be just like Dean). ‘Like’ meant Dean made him feel good. Different from eating your favorite kind of food good, but still good. Like butterflies in your stomach.

Sam likes Dean. It’s a good, safe, word. Not like love.

Sam doesn’t know what you’re supposed to love, exactly. Or how it’s supposed to make you feel. The songs on the radio Dean plays all say different things. It makes you feel good, sexy, crazy, or just plain awful. It’s confusing! But one thing’s for sure, everybody wants it: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Humanity is crying out for love.

When Dean talks about love it’s in reference to Sam’s family. He says they love him and he says it with such passion and insistence that Sam thinks, for a moment, he might understand. But Sam doesn’t love his parents back. He has nothing more than a mild curiosity for John and Mary Winchester. Dean does his best to paint them in vivid colors but it doesn’t inspire the same fervor that Dean has. And it should, he thinks. Love in a family isn’t a one-way street. But Sam can’t remember anything about them. 

His parents are paper people. They’re not real to Sam. But Dean is. Dean is so, so real. 

Dean scavenges food for him, water, clothing (although it’s mostly old hand-me-downs from Dean but at least Sam has shirts now, jeans, shoes and socks of his own), even books when he can find them, a small collection of things piling up under the bed that suddenly “belong” to Sam. Dean entertains him with stories—plot summaries of his favorite movies, mostly starring something called a “Clint Eastwood”—and tells him jokes to make him laugh. Though Sam is still getting used to humor, finds himself always laughing at the wrong thing and getting a funny look from Dean. Still, he’s trying.

Dean tucks him in at night, wakes him up in the morning. So gentle, so kind. It’s a bizarre sort of Twilight Zone life Sam has suddenly found himself in because Dean asks nothing of him, only what can he do for Sam? Is he alright? Does he need anything? A world away from being a Pleasure Model, a tool, a prop. Dean makes Sam feel human, makes Sam feel _loved_. Three weeks together like this in a tiny studio and Sam thinks if it was like this for the rest of his life, he really wouldn’t mind.

But Dean is eager to leave. He’s set on reuniting Sam with his family. Besides, they’re no longer safe here. The city is in an uproar over the damage done to Niveus and the manhunt for Dean is getting hotter by the day. 

Dean has contacts on the outside, politically radical friends who bring him reports: where the Blackcoats are searching, who they’re asking, if they’re getting too close, and how they can escape. Most of them are Naturalists. But Dean is not. He just hates Niveus, which is good enough for them.

Sam grows used to a handful of grimy faced men and women popping in and out of the studio to talk with Dean. Sometimes they bring over a bottle of scotch and talk about revolution, but mostly they just complain that there isn’t enough food to eat, or (despite copiously guzzling it) scotch to drink. No one ever bothers to talk to Sam. They already know who, or what, he is and they’re not fond of it. If they even bother glancing in his direction, it’s to shoot him a dirty look. 

Once, one of the Naturalists spat on Sam; Dean smashed in the man’s face until there was a thick puddle of blood on the floor. Sam was shocked. Dean is always so gentle with him, so kind, that Sam forgets what the wanted man is capable of. Never violent towards him, but _for_ him, like a rabid dog on a leash. Sam is both scared and impressed by that level of devotion. 

After the incident with the Naturalist, Dean meets with rebels and refugees outside the apartment. The only person allowed inside now is Tev, the landlord of this tiny strip of one-bedroom apartments. He’s a Naturalist sympathizer that rents these places cheap to anybody trying to keep under the radar. Tev hates Niveus because they’ve got a monopoly on synthetics. He once had a small business selling an add-on component to synthetic limbs. It was a harmless little thing, to play music while walking. But once Niveus discovered it, and despite his patent, they put out their version of the same product and then ran him out of business. Tev lost everything: a misfortune that drives his current philanthropy.

Tev is a young man, and chatty. He and Dean are friends, of sorts, so he likes to drop by and spend an hour or two complaining about his latest failed business venture, about the creeps he has to deal with on a daily basis, about the air, and anything else he can think of.

Tev is kind to Sam, though not entirely comfortable. Sam catches Tev staring at him, sometimes, like he might malfunction at the drop of a hat and start, what, biting off toes? Sam doesn’t mind, though, because whenever Tev stops by he brings Sam a gift, food, rare fruits, or candies, jellies that melt or even burst in your mouth. Bribery, or an apology, it doesn’t matter. It works. Sam looks forward to Tev’s visits and easily forgives the odd glance or two.

But today, Tev brings something else. Instead of a gift for Sam he shows up in the middle of the afternoon with a Pleasure Model he calls ‘Julia’.

When Tev arrives, Dean is teaching Sam how to play poker with a pack of dirty cards they’d rescued from the trash. That’s when they both notice a woman in 6 inch heels and a tight mini skirt behind him. She’s a Pleasure Model, the doll-like seams around her joints and the mechanical motion of her limbs are a dead give away. But she’s an old model. Retired for nearly a decade. Rich NuNuYorkers buy retired models from the Suite; use them, abuse them, and dump them in the trash. Dumpster diving for synthetic parts is the only way to get a fully functioning Pleasure Model in the undercity.

With that in mind, she doesn’t look half bad. Julia has bleach-blonde hair and a tint that makes her synthskin look spray-tanned. When Tev enters she immediately wobbles up to Dean in her high heels and embraces him, burying half his face in her triple-D breasts.

“Dean. My handsome warrior-man. Julia has returned to spoil you with her love!”

Dean, on the other hand, seems less happy to see her.

“Goddamnit Julia, stop trying to suffocate me with those things!”

Tev closes the door behind him, apologetic. “Sorry man, I figured since you were in town I’d stop by to ask a favor. Julia’s been kind of...glitchy, lately. I was wondering if you could take a look?”

Dean succeeds in prying himself from Julia’s breasts with a huff. “What does this look like, a repair shop? I’m supposed to be in hiding here!” But he’s only kidding. Flashing his friend a playful grin, Dean stands from the bed. “I keep telling you: you ride the equipment too hard, she’s gonna break. A classy lady like this has to be treated with care.”

Dean extends his hand to Julia, who takes it with a girlish giggle.

“You treat this lady _too_ classy,” Julia flirts. “Why not take ride for yourself?”

Julia bats her fake lashes and runs her free hand over Dean’s organic shoulder, feeling the muscle and making a face like she’s impressed. Watching her, something hot and mean flashes in Sam’s gut. As if she senses it, Julia looks to Sam. Her head is cocked to the side and Sam can feel her scanning him.

“Oh,” she says after a moment. “Upgraded model?” The information sinks into her systems, churns through her personality settings as a string of zeros and ones, which in turn causes her to slap Dean across the organic side of his face. “You _cheat_ on me?” 

“Shit! Julia?”

Tev jumps across the room and uselessly tries to pull the Pleasure Model away.

“Fuck. Is _that_ your glitch, Tev?” Dean growls, backing away. 

“Julia deactivate!”

At Tev’s command the light in Julia’s eyes goes out. Her body slowly relaxes and Tev awkwardly catches her just before she lands face-first on the table.

“Sorry,” he apologizes. “I was trying this new jealous girlfriend mode, you know, to spice things up? But I can’t get her to stop acting like you’re one of her users, Dean. When she saw Sam it must have registered him as an, I dunno, threat.”

“It’s not the mode,” Sam offers. “My systems detect damage to her lithium core.”

Tev and Dean look at him, then each other. Tev darts his eyes away guiltily. Dean motions for Sam to come over.

“Hey. Guess we handled her a little roughly. Sorry you had to see that,” Dean says, hushed voice, hands on Sam’s shoulder. “You okay?”

“I’m not the one who got slapped,” Sam reminds, touching Dean’s face where it’s still red.

Dean laughs, leaning into his palm, again. “Yeah. Wouldn’t you know, happens more often than I’d like.”

Sam smiles. He likes these little moments between them. Out of all the humans Sam has met, Dean is the only one who's comfortable with him, the only one that treats him like he’s the human Dean so insists he is. They’ve gotten closer these past three weeks. And they touch more: on the shoulder, on the leg, brushing pieces of hair out of the other’s eyes. It makes Sam’s heart flutter every time. Not just when he’s allowed to touch Dean, but when Dean seeks him out, kisses his forehead, falls asleep in his lap. The world shrinks when they’re together. Becomes just him and Dean.

Him, and Dean, and Tev, who clears his throat beside them.

“Right. Julia,” Dean remembers, turning to the Pleasure Model draped over the table. “So, Sam, you think it’s the lithium core? Let’s take a look.”

Clinically, Dean pushes the pleasure model’s shirt up to gain access to the panel on her back. Neither of the men give much notice to Julia’s breasts spilling out onto the table but Sam feels the color rise to his cheeks. With a shake, Dean’s synthetic arm opens up like a treasure box exposing a small set of tools. He picks one from the set and begins delicately removing Julia’s panel. 

“Dean’s my go to repairman for everything Synthetic,” Tev explains, sheepishly, to Sam. “He helped me piece Julia together. The guy’s a _master_. Although you wouldn’t know it from those crap arms and legs of his.”

“Fuck you,” Dean laughs. “Tev knows I made them like this for a reason.”

Sam’s eyes go wide, staring at Dean’s piece-meal arm and leg as he works. “You made them?” he asks.

“Yup,” Dean answers. “I couldn’t trust store-bought, even recycled. Everything out of Niveus comes with a tracking chip you’re supposed to register—not the smartest thing for the most wanted man in NuNuYork to wear. So I built my own from scrap: plastics, and metal, and spare bits of wire. Went to university to be an engineer. Picked up the basics before I dropped out and learned everything else on the fly.”

So that’s why Dean’s synthetics are so unusual. They hadn’t been bought from Niveus but assembled from junk. It would take a tremendous amount of skill to do that, and imagination. Sam wonders at this strange man, so brilliant, living in the slums of the undercity, willing to become violent, even to murder, just to protect him.

“Yeah here it is, you were right,” Dean says a few minutes later. A digital magnifier over Dean’s synthetic eye lets him peer into Julia’s guts where one of her power cells is leaking. “And see here it’s starting to corrupt the personality matrix. She’ll need a new battery as soon possible.”

Dean replaces Julia’s back panel, pulls her shirt back down over her breasts. Then he deactivates the digital magnifier, replaces the tools in his arm that transforms back to normal. 

“The battery’s up to you, Tev,” Dean concludes. “I’m not about to risk being seen outside the undercity just to fix your glorified fuck doll.”

Tev rolls his eyes. “Fine. But I thought you were the expert. How did _he_ know what was wrong with her?” Tev asks, pointing an accusatory finger at Sam.

“All models are equipped with proximate discernment scans,” Sam answers. “It allows Pleasure Models to both detect and diagnose each other. That’s how Julia recognized me.”

“But you’re _not_ a Pleasure Model, Sam,” Dean says, as if Sam needs reminding. And maybe he does. Sam struggles to forget the Pleasure Suite. Struggles to feel human.

“This is never going to happen to you again,” Dean insists, pointing to Julia on the table. “I won’t let it. You don’t even have a panel, only the aperture at the back of your neck and I soldered that closed, remember? No one can command you, or put you into sleep mode, or deactivate you. Ever.”

Sam gingerly touches the back of his neck: a hard metal disk sitting between soft swathes of skin. “But her programming, I—”

“Don’t have any of that shit in your head,” Dean says. “You were offline when they took you out of the Pleasure Suite and now it’s permanent.”

“Unless someone’s got, like, a supercomputer or something to access your hardware,” Tev adds, unhelpfully, earning a dirty look from Dean. “I mean, um. I’ll go and order that part. Now.”

“Let me see you out.”

With a hand on Tev’s shoulder, Dean pushes their landlord towards the door.

“And Julia stays here?” Tev asks, reluctant.

“She’ll be fine,” Dean reassures.

Sam follows until they exit the studio. Then he stands in front of the door, presses his ear to the wood. Out of range for most human hearing, Sam can still listen to their conversation as they walk down the hallway together.

“So,” Tev plies. “What’s with you and that Sam, thing, huh? You two seem kind of...close.”

“Close?” Dean parrots.

“Yeah. Close,” Tev repeats. “And to think! All this time you've been giving me shit over Julia. Now here you are, holed up with Niveus’s latest Pleasure Model--”

“Are you deaf, what did I just say in there?” Dean snaps. “He’s not a model, Tev, he’s a human.”

"Whatever he is, you like him,” Tev continues to prod. "Cause the way that you look at him, Dean. The way he looks at you--"

“Stop it. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah. I do,” Tev insists. “That kid’s got a walloping crush on you. And maybe you’re blind to it but I’m not, and neither is Julia. That’s what triggered her jealousy, you know, not that scanny-whatever your kid said.”

“Sam. His name is Sam,” Dean corrects.

“It’s dangerous, is all,” Tev continues. “You can’t play around with that kid. Because with Julia, I can always reset her. But with Sam? If he’s so human, like you claim, then you can’t reprogram him if he falls in love with you.”

Their conversation slips out of Sam’s range when they exit the building and the metal door slams behind them. The echo reverberates inside his chest. Sam sits down, a hand over his heart as it beats wildly.

Love. Is that what’s happening to him? All his feelings for Dean. His desire to touch. To be near. Not like. But love. Was that really it?

Love: the one thing that’s irrevocably, universally human. Sam smiles. If it's true, maybe, just maybe, he’ll believe Dean when he says he’s more than a Pleasure Model.

  
  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
  
  


Tev buys a new battery for Julia on the black market, and Dean installs it. He also removes the jealous girlfriend upgrade at Tev’s request. Surprisingly, after it’s removed, Julia becomes a quick friend to Sam. She absorbs his half-human, half-synthetic situation quickly but only as an upgrade. Her systems still mistake him for a Pleasure Model, much to the frustration of Dean. But Dean doesn’t stop them from chatting. In fact he prefers someone, or something, to be around when he has to meet an informant, or leave for supplies. And it’s one such supply run that has Julia with Sam now, sipping a cup of tea together. Julia’s model was one of the first to ingest liquids. It shows her age.

“No. No. Dean and I never engage,” Julia admits. “I would be most blessed model in all of the multiverse to be with such perfect specimen of man but Julia is not so lucky, no.”

Sam couldn’t help asking if Dean and Julia had ever been...intimate. It’s something that’s been burning at the back of his mind ever since Julia first appeared. Plus, a Pleasure Model has to answer all questions put to it. Dean, on the other hand, can never answer anything straight.

“But you treat him like a user,” Sam says of Dean. “Even your primary user, Tev, is confused by it.”

“Dean fix Julia so many times he leave imprint on her systems,” Julia explains. “He is registered as _secondary_ user. For convenient access.”

She winks at him, and Sam smiles. 

“But you’ve never done anything?” he asks. Again. Just to be sure.

“He show Julia no interest,” Julia sniffs, as if her manufactured pride could be damaged. “But he shows Sam much interest, yes? And Sam has interest too?”

Sam stares into his cup of tea, feels blood rushing to his cheeks. “I think so, yeah,” he admits. 

Julia giggles conspiratorially and pulls Sam into an embrace. Sam carefully balances his tea so it doesn’t spill as his face is buried in her breasts.

“So then you must engage together, yes?” she asks before finally letting him go. “Then come share all the naughty bits with Julia.”

Sam bites his lip, unsure. Dean’s been acting strange after that conversation with Tev in the hallway. Distant. Cold. It confuses him.

“I don’t know. What if he doesn’t really like me back?”

Julia tuts. “Many type of men. Programming has them categorized-—all the better to please. And your Dean is manly-man on outside, but too scared to make first move. So it must be you, Samuel. To give pleasure. And because you are special. Different. You can _feel_ pleasure too.”

Julia looks into his eyes, lifts his chin and brushes a thumb across his lips. Soft. Tender. Even though it’s not Dean, the sensation still makes Sam’s spine tingle.

“What a gift,” she says. “To be able to feel, not only in fingers but in soul. Julia would love to know pleasure’s touch. Even in something as simple as kiss.”

Fluttering her lashes closed, Julia leans in to kiss him. Her plumped and pouted synthskin presses against his. She’s room temperature, if a bit cool, but she makes a pretty little sound as their mouths meet, a gentle moan that Sam can feel like a wave passing through his body. Suddenly, it makes sense: why humans press their bodies together.

“How feel?” Julia asks. 

Sam’s eyelids flutter. He tries to think, tries to share it with Julia so she can understand.

“It’s like being electrocuted,” he says. “Not a huge power surge that shuts down your systems but something gentler. Like a tickle. A little electric tickle throughout your body. And it’s nice. It’s really, really nice.”

Julia smiles at him, tender. “Thank you, Samuel,” she says. “For little moment, I pretend I am human too.”

Sam smiles back. He remembers what it was like to be Julia: caught in a prison of ice. But he's free now. And what's the point of any of this freedom if he doesn't share it with someone special? Sam wants to kiss again, like Julia has shown him. But with Dean. Everything and everything. Always and forever—with Dean.


	4. Part 4

It’s late. Sam’s body is still heavy with sleep when Dean shakes him, fear and urgency laced in his voice.

“Sammy? Wake up we’ve got to go!”

Sam sits up rubbing his eyes. Dean is at his feet, shoving everything Sam owns (four books, 3 t-shirts, a ratty pair of jeans and some underwear) into a beat up duffle bag. Zips it, throws it on the bed.

“What is it?” Sam asks, shoving his feet into a pair of worn sneakers.

Dean puts a finger to his lips and Sam nods, understands. They’d rehearsed this before, in case they were discovered before they could gain safe passage out of the city.

It’s time to go. 

Dean is already dressed in a long, worn cloak over his shoulder, hood up, just like the night they first met. His right arm is transformed into a blaster, but Sam is no longer afraid of the wanted man on the digital sign. Tonight, he trusts Dean with his life. So he grabs the duffle bag off the bed, and together they slip out of the apartment, down the hallway to the heavy metal door at the front. It’s the first time Sam’s seen it since they’d arrived.

Tonight there’s no beady-eyed guard, which gives Sam a sinking feeling. Was the guard dead? Had they been betrayed? 

The metal door suddenly shifts, though, before they can reach it. They have just enough time to press themselves against the opposite wall, momentarily hidden in shadow as it swings open and a synthetic head appears. Midnight black, smooth and circular like a helmet, it steps inside. A long black coat is draped over its skeletal frame. On its chest, an NNYPD badge is pinned. Niveus-supplied Blackcoats. First one, then two. Sam inhales sharply: they’ve been discovered!

 _Schwatck! Schwatck!_ Dean shoots the two synthetics in the head. The first goes down, but the second waves it’s hand-gun at them. Dean lunges, spins the droid around, and with his own synthetic arm, twists its head off with a sickening snap. The Blackcoat’s body drops like a brick beside its mate, sparks sputtering from its twisted neck. Dean puts his foot on the synthetic’s chest, rips off the badge and pockets it.

Sam’s eyes are wide, his breathing, erratic. But Dean is the bellwether of their escape. He calmly motions for Sam to follow him, and, more urgently, to be silent. Sam nods, the sound of his own beating heart as loud as any siren.

They slip out of the dingy building to the murmur and static of police radio. The alleyway is blocked by an NNYPD hovercar. Red and blue lights illuminate the brick buildings as four Blackcoats inspect Dean’s car parked just twenty feet away. There could easily be a dozen more just out of sight.

Sam and Dean duck behind a dumpster near the building entrance. They haven't been discovered, but they will be. When a Blackcoat is taken offline, a distress signal is sent and dozens swarm to replace it. It’ll take a few minutes for the system to register a missing bot, but when it does, the whole force will descend. There’s no time for hesitation. So Dean jumps into action. Adjusting the settings on his bluster to maximum force he fires two shots at his own car.

The first shot blows the hood wide open. The second goes straight into the engine. There’s a _flash! bang!_ and then the car explodes. Dean throws himself over Sam to protect him from shrapnel. Incernated synthetics are still ricocheting off the walls around them when Dean leaps to his feet and starts pushing at the dumpster.

“Go! Go! Go!” he yells.

The sound of his voice is an electric shock. Sam jumps up to assist and together they run towards the entrance using the dumpster as a shield. They ram into something (another Blackcoat?) and the dumpster flips over besides Dean’s burning car. There’s only a narrow entrance to the alley now and two more droids enter single-file, easy targets for Dean to pick off with his blaster. But then, from behind, something grabs Sam.

“Dean!”

Dean turns around to find a Blackcoat with its hand-gun pointed at Sam’s temple. It was missing a helmet, sparks flying from its neck. Dean grits his teeth: the droid he’d decapitated earlier. Somehow, it’s still functioning.

“Niveus property acquired. The fugitive will surrender or die.”

Dean switches the blaster between the two synthetics near the entrance and the Blackcoat holding Sam. It would be seconds before hundreds descend, eliminating any chance of their escape. 

“The fugitive will surrender or die,” they repeat.

He’s surprised they don’t shoot him on sight. Maybe they have an order to keep him alive. Maybe whoever’s President of Niveus now thinks Dean can be tortured into spilling information about the Naturalists. As if everything he’d lost wasn’t torture enough. 

“I die either way, don’t I?” Dean all but laughs.

“Dean!”

Sam calls out, eyes wide with fear, clutching that stupid duffle bag to his chest. 

Bizarrely, Dean smiles. “Close your eyes, Sammy” he instructs.

Sam hesitates. But Dean is so calm, so sure, that Sam takes a deep breath and screws his eyes shut.

_Schwatck! Schwatck! Schwatck!_

The Blackcoat threatening him drops to the ground. Sam opens his eyes to find all three droids with smoking holes in their chests. He also finds Dean staggering towards him, holding his side. Blood, and the stench of burnt flesh.

“Dean!” Sam shouts, rushing to his side.

“Leave it,” Dean growls, shaking off Sam’s concern. “We’ve gotta get out of here before the rest of them come. We were lucky it was such a small patrol. It means we still might have a _chance_.”

Dean refuses his help. He limps around the dumpster, to the NNYPD hovercar on the other side. Luckily, it’s empty, so Dean digs out the badge in his pocket and holds it up to the window like a key. The car scans the badge and opens to them both. 

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Sam says, stomach dropping at the bloody handprint Dean leaves on the steering wheel. “They could’ve killed us!”

“They’re never going to kill _you_ ,” Dean laughs bitterly as the doors close around them, red and blue lights still flashing. “Spent too much money on you for that. That’s how I knew it was a bluff, pointing a gun at your head. As if.”

“But you’re hurt!”

“You forget, I’ve had worse,” Dean dismisses. Taking control of the hovercar they begin to lift into the air, rising out of the undercity and back into the bustling lights of NuNuYork. “Niveus set me on fire and my skin wrinkled and burnt like parchment paper. My limbs, like candle wax. But if I can survive that, a little laser blast isn’t going to take me out. I’m not that easy to get rid of.”

Forward thrust!

Sam and Dean accelerate into oncoming traffic again with their lights blaring. Thinking they’re cops, Taxi cabs and hoverlimos desperately fly out of their way. Shouts from the confused NNYPD come in over the radio. Dean turns it off with a laugh. On they run, lights of the city racing by. 

“They think we’re going offworld,” Dean explains. He navigates the multi-layers of traffic with ease, knows exactly where he’s going. “And it’s true, we are. But, they’ll be searching passenger ships on the east end of the city while we’re _actually_ hitching a ride to the Sioux Moon on the west.”

The Sioux Moon. It’s the second of the twin moons shining high in the skies of NuNuYork. It’s a waste planet—literally. The waste from NuEarth is scooped up on garbage transports and dumped on its desert sands. There are rumors about refugee camps there, a shell atmosphere created by scientists run out or fired by Niveus, but only rumors.

Dean swerves around a hovertruck. There are hundreds now, criss-crossing over and above. Shipping, garbage, and flatbed trucks all heading to the docks to dump their wares. Sam peers down at them, warily eyes open-topped shipping containers full of Synthetic parts: arms, legs, and heads. Could that be coming from the Pleasure Suite? He shivers.

The shipping docks are on the edge of the NuAtlantic Ocean. Sam can see the city, miles out, suddenly stop like the edge of a cliff, the ocean stretching out past it, towards the horizon, a black sheet of glass. They hurtle towards it, but they’re in trouble. Up ahead, a line of police cars await at the highest level of traffic, an energy net beneath them, dropping a hundred stories below. They remember Dean’s trick from last time, and they don’t plan on letting him escape. 

“Shit,” Dean mutters beneath his breath. “They found us.”

Then the dashboard inside the car starts flashing red.

“Warning. The driving credentials for the vehicle have been revoked,” the car announces. “You are illegally operating a police cruiser. You have 10 seconds to exit the vehicle before the controls are locked.”

“Well fuck you, too.”

Immediately, Dean presses on the gas, locks the pedal in place. Straight ahead, at full speed, he throws open the driver’s side door. Sam gasps as the cold wind of the city hits him in the face.

“Come here.” Pushing his seat back Dean motions for Sam to join him. 

Sam climbs over the gear shift and into Dean’s lap. He’s still holding his duffle bag but it’s too clunky. Dean takes it from him and throws it in the backseat. Facing each other, he pulls Sam’s arms around his neck, presses their bodies together. 

“You trust me, don’t you?” he asks with a feral grin. 

Cars beeping, traffic rushing, a thousand mile drop below them, rushing towards the Blackcoats at top speed: Sam doesn’t hesitate. “Always,” he says.

“Then hang on tight.”

Embracing Sam, they fall, together, out of the car and down into the traffic below. Down through the cold, biting air. Down through dozens of cars whizzing past. Down and down and down. Falling, for what feels like an eternity, until finally— _Whampf!_ Sam hits something hard, and solid. Something that takes his breath away, makes his body bounce, until he falls into it again.

Sam’s alive, somehow. And moving. Above him, the police hovercar they’d stolen slams into the roadblock. It explodes into another fiery inferno, like Dean’s car, like Niveus. Its embers light up the sky, fireworks to celebrate their daring escape. Sam stares in wonder, stiff and a little bit winded until the sky takes a very sudden left; their burning getaway vehicle disappearing out of view.

Sam sits up to find himself in a container full of disassembled Synthetics. Dean had timed their fall perfectly to coincide with a truck heading straight for the docks. His nose twitches at the encroaching stench. It’s awful, but it means they’re close. 

“Dean!”

Sam had let go of him on impact. Now he scrambles over discarded parts until he finds the wanted man a few feet away, half-buried and unconscious. Sam quickly clears Dean of the debris, leaning beside him, shaking him awake. “Dean! We made it. _Dean_. Wake up!”

Dean groans, struggles to open his eyes. “Where-”

“We’re close,” Sam answers. “But your laser wound, Dean. Is it bad?” 

Sam insists on inspecting it. With his help, Dean sits up and they pull his shirt aside to get a better look. There’s a nasty black scorch mark across Dean’s left side, but it’s only surface level, doesn't run deep. And whatever bleeding there was has already started to clot. 

“Non fatal,” Sam reports and relief floods his veins. He feels like he might cry. But Dean only huffs and rolls his shirt back down.

“What did I tell you? I’m like a cockroach. Or, uh, the Terminator. Yeah. Try to kill me and I come back with five sequels and a mini series.”

Sam laughs, brushes the threat of tears from his eyes. He hates how carelessly Dean talks about death. Sam has only just been gifted with this life—a life for him and no one else. He can’t imagine it without Dean. He refuses. 

“They won’t think we’re dead for long,” Dean reports. Still weak, and winded, he lays back down onto the debris. “But it’s enough to fool them for a few hours, and by then we’ll be on the Sioux Moon. One step closer to reuniting with your family.”

Oh. Yes. His parents. He’d forgotten this was all for them. Sam looks back up to the sky where the twin moons shine bright. The moon with the red-orange tint, that was Sioux. 

Dean touches his shoulder and when Sam looks back down into his face—beaten, but warm, welcoming, home—then Sam knows. He just knows. Because his heart is fluttering in his chest. Because he’s never, ever going to let Dean go. Because Julia was right, and Tev. He was in love. With Dean. God, how wonderful. He was in _love_.

Sam lays down beside Dean, then, head on his chest. Dean casually drapes an arm over his shoulder and together they watch the stars, the sky, the city of NuNuYork as their hovertruck enters the docks and begins to slow. They were leaving Julia and Tev behind, which is sad, but as long as Dean is beside him, everything will be alright.

“What’s going to happen when we get there?” Sam asks. “To the moon?” 

Dean hesitates, as he always does when speaking about their future. “Well. The place we need to go is out in the middle of nowhere. So we’ll have to barter for transport first, I suppose. ”

The hovertruck enters the loading dock. Two dozen gray metal ships await. Slowly, the truck turns around, beeping.

“And then?” Sam asks.

“Then we drive through the desert,” Dean answers.

“And then?”

The truck loads them onto the first open garbage ship, sliding the open-top container Sam and Dean are hiding in atop another in its cargo hold.

“Then you meet your family,” Dean says carefully. “And…it’s perfect. Everyone’s together again. Just like they're supposed to be.”

“But what about you?” Sam asks. He sits up, suddenly, synthetic parts shifting under him. “What happens to you, Dean?”

Dean’s face goes blank. He’s caught off guard by the question. “What?”

“You’re doing this because you lost a brother, right?” Sam presses. “So once you reunite me, what then? Are you just going to go? Leave me behind?”

Silence. After the shipping container is loaded, the hover truck disengages with its freight and flies off. Behind it, another truck starts backing up.

“Stay,” Sam insists. “When you bring me to my family, stay, don’t go. I'm sure they wouldn't mind. You saved me, after all."

Dean’s silence continues. He stares at him, stricken, wounded. It’s not the reaction Sam had calculated. His confidence wavers.

“Please,” Sam hears himself beg. “I know I can't replace your brother Dean but I could—maybe, I could still make you happy. If you give me a chance."

A second shipping container gets loaded, sliding directly on top of theirs.

Dean glances nervously between Sam and the encroaching shadow. “Sammy….” he says. Halting. Unsure.

Sam’s heart beats in his chest. He’s nervous Dean will say no so it’s up to Sam to show him how much he means it. Isn’t that what Julia said? That it was up to him to make the first move? Nervously, he leans over Dean, so close he feels the wanted man’s breath on his lips.

“Don’t go,” Sam repeats. “Stay with me. Forever.”

Above them, the shipping container locks into place, swallowing them both in darkness.

That’s when Sam kisses Dean with all of the love in his ragged, bloody heart. The heart Crowley tried to rip away from him. The heart he wants to share with Dean. Lips parted, pressing against the wanted man, sending nervous waves of pleasure down his spine and hoping Dean can feel it too. His kiss is an invitation, but one Dean doesn’t share, at first. Still and grim, Sam wonders if he’s made a terrible mistake. But then Dean shudders and laces his fingers through Sam’s hair. Dean pulls him close, hungrily opening his mouth to accept Sam’s invitation.

They kiss and Sam feels alive. Alive, and for the first time, completely human.


	5. Part 5

Sam and Dean don’t land on the Sioux Moon so much as they’re dumped onto it.

The garbage ship they’ve stowed away in lowers itself down towards the surface to empty the contents of each shipping container one by one. Sam and Dean fall about ten feet before they hit a heaping pyramid of trash, one of hundreds in this particular dumpsite. Together, they slide down the shifting sides until they hit the red sand surface below.

Sam sneezes a mouthful of dust, stands to brush the dirt and grime from his clothes.

It’s daylight. They’d only been in the cargo hold for two hours but they’re on the other side of the planet now, facing the NuSun. Above Sam, three garbage ships cast looming shadows. They cruise slowly, discarding the waste of NuNuYork (which includes one Pleasure Model, and a wanted man). Past the garbage heaps are sand dunes stretching out endlessly into the horizon. Desert, all around them, although the temperature is cool, and the air, thin. A wind comes from the east, kicks up the sand and turns the sky a hazy pink. NuEarth hangs above him as a red disk.

Somewhere, up there, the Blackcoats are figuring out they’d escaped. Sam’s not sure how much time that affords them but for now, he feels relief. Breathing deep, his sensors examine the air quality: 20 percent oxygen, 68 percent nitrogen. So it’s true: there's an atmospheric shell that makes it safe for humans. In fact, Sam registers three other life signs in the surrounding trash heaps. Squinting, he can just make out their silhouettes in the distance. They aren’t alone.

“Sam.”

Dean lays a hand on his shoulder and Sam turns. The sight of him makes Sam’s heart jump into his throat. They had kissed! On the run, on the moon, surrounded by strangers and it’s still all Sam can think about. Their lips pressed together, Dean’s hand in his hair. A pact: together, no matter what.

But now isn’t the time to reflect on that. They’d escaped Niveus, but they aren’t out of danger.

“You can sense them, can’t you, the other stowaways?” Dean asks. Nervously he removes the tattered cloak from around his shoulders. Shaking it free of garbage and sand, he drapes it across Sam.

“Three,” Sam affirms. “And they’re coming this way.”

“Then listen to me carefully,” Dean says, lifting the hood on his cloak so that it hides Sam’s face. “Niveus has no jurisdiction here which means we’re safe from them, for a time, but we’re in danger from everyone else. Because the Sioux Moon is a criminal world. The only way you survive here is to steal, or trade, and the only thing worth trading is synthetics. That makes it dangerous for you Sam. Do you understand? Inside you are the most advanced synthetics Niveus has ever produced and these people  _ will  _ cut you open to get their hands on it.  That’s why it’s important that you stick with me, keep your head down, and don’t say anything unless I tell you to. Understand?”

Sam’s eyes shine with resentment. All he wants to do is be with Dean but the universe keeps conspiring against them: Niveus, the Blackcoats, and the criminals on the moon. It makes Sam feel small, and tiny, and he _ hates it _ . 

“Hey,” Dean comforts, as if he can read Sam’s mind. “Don’t worry. We made it this far. That was the hard part. We just gotta be smart and we’ll make it the rest.”

Dean offers his hand and Sam takes it, gripping tight. A small consolation, he thinks, when he’d rather be kissing Dean’s lips.

Now all three of the stowaways are visible, two men and one woman making their way towards the edge of the dump where Sam and Dean stand. One of the stowaways waves and says something in a language Sam doesn't understand, that isn’t programmed into his translators. Bizarrely, Dean waves and shouts his answer back.

“But what about  _ your _ synthetics?” Sam asks, hushed and hurried as the others close in, Dean’s arm glinting harshly in the sun. 

“This guy tried to take them, once,” Dean answers. “But I shot him in the face and no one’s bothered me since.”

Before Dean can elaborate, they're surrounded by the stowaways who greet each other in that same language, briefly, before converting back into what Sam can understand. The first man introduces himself as an escaped convict. A homely looking woman claims to be a Naturalist extremist on the run. And the third, apparently, is homeless. He’d drunkenly fallen asleep in a dumpster to find himself on the Sioux Moon half-buried in refuse. All three of them turn to Dean who exoctically claims to be an ex-jewel-thief trying to turn punk-rock-star. If anyone thinks he’s lying they don’t accuse him of it. Nor do they ask who his silent companion is, covered from head-to-toe and stubbornly staring at the sand. Instead, the stowaways ask how to get to someplace called Ka’arm. To Sam’s surprise, Dean offers to lead the way.

On the edge of the dump is a chain link fence. Dean has them climb through an opening cut in the side and walk for about a half mile north where they find a steel platform jutting out from the red sands. Carved into the platform is more of that bizarre language.

“It’s prisonspeak,” Dean explains, out of earshot from the others while they stand and wait (for what, Sam doesn’t know). 

“It comes from one of those prison planets in the Cluster system. It’s not understood by Blackcoats so it’s become the unofficial language of criminals and the dispossessed. You’ve got to know a handful of it to get by in a place like this, or else no one trusts you.”

“They all seem to trust you just fine,” Sam observes dryly.

Dean looks at him and grins. “Guess I’ve got one of those faces.”

And that's when Sam remembers Dean is a wanted man. Even if the stowaways didn’t recognize him from the poster, the evidence is damning: a body covered in scars, with self-made prosthetics well past the 70-30 ratio. One look and it’s obvious: Dean is a criminal. The others must have seen him and assumed, correctly, that Dean would know his way around on a world like this.

But it’s not a criminal Sam sees when he looks at Dean. A man who is world-worn and weary, sure, who's seen a lot of pain. But Sam also sees someone who is fiercely loyal, with a sworn duty to protect. Dangerous, but also profoundly gentle. Kind. With a child-like sense of humor and a quick wit. That’s what no one else can see, except Sam. That Dean’s heart is just as ragged and bloody as his.

“Squeezing a little hard there, kiddo.” Dean laughs, holds their hands up, interlocked. Sam smiles back but refuses to let go. 

  
  
  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
  
  


Ka’arm is a refugee town created by criminals and exiles hiding out on the Sioux Moon. Getting there via garbage dump is more popular than Sam thought because there are multiple pick up points across the moon. Stowaways stand and wait for the shuttle to bring them round. That’s how Sam and Dean arrive, on a sled attached to a giant animal with a round back and thick armored skin the same blood red color as the desert around them. The stowaways call it a Harmadillo and it’s ridden by a tiny man in black, strapped to a saddle, cracking a whip and shouting  _ hiya! hiya! _ as it pulls up to the platform.

All aboard. Sam, Dean, and the other stowaways climb into the shuttle. The Harmadillo scuffles off with a grunt and they leave the dump behind them.

After six hours battling the sand and the wind, they finally arrive at Ka’arm. The town sprang out of the ruins of a crashed spaceship nearly 100 cycles ago, pieces of its outer shell slowly dismantled to build the homes and storefronts around it until all that’s left now is an empty shell, a steel skeleton that’s miles long.

Inside the skeleton is the Red Market: the heart of Ka’arm. Here, everything is for sale. The refuse from NuNuYork is collected, polished, reassembled, and sold back at whatever price doesn’t get your throat cut. Smugglers sell rare goods, endangered animals, or illegal parts. And there’s lots, and lots, of food. Colorful fruits are all on display. Dried meat from a dozen different animals hang on clothes lines stretched across the skeleton of the old ship. The smell of something cooking wafts throughout the whole town. It makes Sam’s stomach rumble the second they get off that rickety shuttle. 

Dean smells it too. “Hungry?” he asks. Still holding Sam’s hand, he pulls him through the crowd.

But beneath the brightly colored fruits and fabrics, there’s a dangerous underbelly to Ka’arm. Chop shops line the edges of every street: beheaded synthetics, cannibalized bodies. Men and women haggle over prices, and every single one of them is armed. Sam does his best to stick close to Dean, keeping the cloak tight about his body and the hood drawn low. But Dean is perfectly happy amongst the mercenaries and cutthroats. He smiles like a kid in a candy shop, pulling Sam along until they find a cart selling something mysterious and purple on a stick. Dean pays for it with a wallet that isn't his, winking at Sam’s curious glance.

When they’re standing under the awning of an empty storefront, away from the crowd, Sam finally lowers his hood. By then, Dean has already started tearing into his meat. Sam hesitates, noting the grease dripping down the sides.

“What  _ is _ this?” he finally asks.

“Harmadillo,” Dean answers.

Sam blanches. He can’t imagine the poor animal that dragged them through the desert being cut up and served like a side of beef. Guiltily, he rejects the food, handing his portion back to Dean.

“I thought as much,” Dean laughs. Digging into his pocket he produces a small fruit for Sam instead. The skin is bright yellow but it's coated in red hairs. Sam remembers something like it sitting on one of the stands as they passed. If stealing is a matter of survival in Ka’arm, Dean is very good at it.

“Go on,” Dean urges. “Try it.” 

Picking at the skin with his thumbnails, Sam slowly peels the fruit open to reveal bright pink flesh on the inside. It’s segmented, like an orange, so Sam tears a piece off and sets it on his tongue. Closing his eyes, chewing, he savors the bright burst of flavor: sweet, savory, light, and tangy all at once. 

“Wow. That’s really good,” he says, greedily tearing off another chunk.

Dean is satisfied by his response. “Ramuderin,” he explains. “They were always your favorite as a kid.”

As a kid. Dean drops it casually but Sam latches on. “What does that mean,” Sam asks, “Did you know me, before?”

Dean thinks about this for a long second before finally answering, “Yes.”

“But you never said,” Sam accuses. “Only that you knew my family. And even then—like you’d just met.”

“No,” Dean corrects. “I’ve known you both for a long time. That’s how I know the real you is coming back. Slowly. But surely.”

Dean narrows his eyes, watching him carefully. Sam’s mind races. He looks down at the Ramuderin in his hands and the remnants of the fruit turn sour in his mouth. His stomach flips.

“This was a test,” he realizes. “To see if I liked the same things as him. That other boy.”

Dean stiffens, but doesn't deny it. “If it’s any consolation, you passed.” 

Sam’s heart stutters, stings. He sees Dean as he is now and loves him for it. But Dean sees Sam and thinks only of the dead boy he used to know. 

“And if I didn’t?” Sam challenges. Wounded, betrayed. “If I was  _ different _ ? What then?”

Tears in his eyes, stomach a black pit stuffed with feelings that make Sam ache, make him rage. He imagines eating the Harmadillo, Dean’s face twisting with disgust as he fails a test he doesn’t know he’s taking. Maybe he passed this time, but he could fail the next, or the next. Dean is holding him to an impossible standard. He can’t be someone he doesn’t remember.

“Woah, Sammy. Hey. Calm down.”

Dean tries to touch him but Sam backs away. 

“Don’t call me that,” he says. “I’m not Sammy anymore. I’m not that  _ kid _ .” Sam wishes Dean could accept him for who he is. He fears Dean never will.

“Sammy—Sam. Wait. It’s not like that. I swear.”

They weren’t that far from the crowd after all. Sam takes a few steps out from under the tattered awning and suddenly he’s surrounded by men, all of them wearing long dark robes. They rip off Sam’s cloak and Sam finds himself staring into the eyes of a short round man with a milky white eye and a deep scar running across the left side of his face. The white-eyed man runs a handheld scanner over his body and nods when it beeps.

“This is the one,” he says. “Bring him to me.”

At his command, the robed men surrounding Sam grab him, lift him off his feet.

“Dean!” he shouts.

“ _ Sam! _ ”

Dean is being attacked by robed men as well. He punches one of them, throws another into a pastry stand. But there’s too many. He’s quickly overwhelmed. Sam watches in horror as one of the robed men slam something heavy and dark into the back of Dean’s skull. Sam wants to fight back, wants to help, but then the white-eyed man says “Sleep Mode” and everything turns black.

  
  
  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
  
  


When Sam wakes up again he’s in a dark room with dim light. Candles flicker, casting eerie shadows on the wall—metal, some kind of siding. Sam is on a bed, on his back, and his clothes have been stripped. He lies there naked, exposed.

He tries to sit up on the bed but he’s frozen. His body won’t listen to his commands. Memories of the Pleasure Suite come flooding back: Dr. Brady trying to use him, Crowley trying to cut him open.

_ Oh no. Oh god.  _

“ _ Oh good _ , you're awake.”

A man suddenly looms into Sam’s vision, the man with the milky-white eye from the Red Market. He’s holding a small device aloft. Sam recognizes it as the scanner from the marketplace.

“A Synthetic scanner,” the man explains. “I use to hunt for treasures in the dump, but it absolutely lit up when you walked into town!” he laughs. 

Sam’s heart is a hammer in his chest. Where is he? What happened to Dean?

“Don’t fret, your companion’s right here,” the white-eyed man says. Gripping him by the neck the white-eyed man pushes Sam into an upright position, just enough for him to spy Dean on the floor, unciousous beneath a display of strange-looking blasters. There’s dried blood on his forehead, and both his synthetic limbs have been removed, but his vital signs are still steady. 

Dean is alive.

“Dean Winchester,” the white-eyed man identifies. “A good, dear, friend of mine you know. He gave me this eye over a little dispute. Never did get the chance to repay him. Until now.”

The white-eyed man releases Sam and he falls back onto the bed with a heavy thud. He remembers that last name: Winchester. It was supposed to be his.

“You can imagine my surprise when I discovered the two of you in the Red Market together,” the white-eyed man continues. “Him, a wanted fugitive. And you, a miracle of design. That’s when I remembered the galactic APB put out by Niveus, a desperate plea for justice and stolen property. So if he’s the justice, that makes you the stolen property: Model KAZ-2Y5.”

Sam’s pupils dilate with fear. No, he was human now. Sam. Not  _ that _ .

“My name is Blythe Lonn,” the man introduces. “I’m a collector, of sorts. A tradesman of rare and wonderful oddities here on the Sioux Moon. And you, my precious, are the rarest  _ and _ the oddest thing I’ve ever stumbled upon.”

Blythe runs his hands over Sam’s body. His repulsion is a wave but Sam is powerless to stop it. Desperately he stares in the direction of Dean’s limp body, hoping, praying, that somehow he’ll stop this. But Dean is out cold, and Blythe has already started to spread Sam’s legs. 

“I see your confusion,” Blythe says, wiping away the tears that are pooling in the corner of Sam’s eyes. “Half-human, half-Synthetic, right? And Dean tried to convince you the synthetic part didn’t matter anymore. But you were only just disconnected from the mainframe. Bring you to any Pleasure Suite and it detects your systems, automatically reconnects. Lucky for me, I have my own mainframe right here.”

Blythe pushes Sam’s face to the side so he can see the massive headboard of the bed is in fact one giant computer, a conglomeration of parts all stacked on top of each other. Flickering lights from each section blink to indicate healthy systems. So it had been that, not candles, casting shadows across the wall. 

“Salvaged it from a Pleasure Cruise Ship that crashed about a year ago,” Blythe explains. “It has a working radius of about 3 miles. And without a registered primary user, anyone can command you into Sleep Mode.”

So he’d been a defacto Pleasure Model the second they stepped into Ka’arm. Except this was worse. At least when Sam had been a Pleasure Model in NuNuYork, he was numb. He couldn’t feel his clients’ wet, clammy skin dragging up and down his thighs. Couldn’t taste the fear and horror in his own mouth. Couldn’t remember the way they licked their lips as they savored their own power over him. Now he’s locked in a prison of his own skin, forced to suffer it all.

“I’m going to enjoy taking you for a test run. Such a good little boy they made,” Blythe says, touching Sam. Kissing him. Pressing his lips to Sam’s. Lips that belonged to Dean. “The perfect machine.”

Except he isn’t! That’s why they’d brought Sam back to Niveus, because he was broken. Wrong. Too human to be controlled properly. 

_ You can’t get rid of Sam Winchester that easily _ , Dean had said.

He hates Sam Winchester, that boy he can’t remember. And yet, those remaining pieces of Sam give him life, allow him to hope, to feel. To love Dean. Everything he has now he owes to the boy before. Including the strength to fight. So he fights. Sam focuses on the human heart in his chest to push his will past the programs and the commands keeping him frozen on the bed. It starts with a finger twitching, arm shaking. Then, suddenly, Sam finds his hands shooting out to wrap around Blythe’s throat!

The collector gasps for breath, gaping like a fish out of water. He paws at Sam’s wrist, trying to break free, but Sam is in control now. His hand is a vice. He’s not letting go.

“S-stop,” Blythe gasps. “Wait.”

Sam’s lips curl into a sneer. His jaw loosens. “Fuck. You,” he replies and squeezes harder. He’s so full of rage; his eyes are blinded with tears.

_ Schwatck!  _ The sound of a blaster cuts through the room. Sam feels the fight go out of Blythes body, sees his eyes roll into the back of his head as a red circle of blood appears on his chest, grows larger and larger. Shaken, Sam uses what’s left of his strength to throw the man away from him. Blythe collapses on the floor and that’s when Sam sees Dean. He stands balanced precariously on one leg, a blaster from the display behind him in his bruised, tremoring hand. 

Sam wants to cry for joy, shout Dean’s name, but his strength is already waning. He’s freezing up again. His arm, stuck in the air. Struggling, he manages two more words.

“The compu...ter.”

Dean turns his attention to the blinking headboard, nods that he understands. Aiming it at the computer he fires several shots. Sparks fly, a tiny explosion that makes Dean duck. Tucking the blaster into his own belt, and using the metal wall to guide himself, Dean literally hops over to where Sam lies.

With the mainframe corrupted, Sam is released from its control. He sits up from the bed with a gasp, like a man drowning. 

“Sammy!” Dean greets, relief, and then guilt. “I mean—Sam. Are you okay? Did he touch you?”

Sam averts his eyes, quickly pulling the sheets from the bed around himself to hide his naked body. “I’m better now,” he says. 

The mainframe erupts in another hail of sparks. Things are catching fire all around them, including Blythe. His leg ignites, but his body remains still. That’s when Sam understands that the man with a hole in his back is probably dead. Dean saw him near Sam and shot him, without knowing that Sam might have been just as close to snapping Blythe’s neck. Even if he wasn’t Sam Winchester anymore, there was still something about this Sam that Dean would compulsively protect. 

“We’ve gotta get out of here,” Dean urges. “Those black-robed goons will show up any second.”

Sam stands by Dean’s side, wrapping an arm around his waist

“Lean on me,” he urges.

Together they throw open a smouldering curtain and hobble out of the room. They’d been in a metal silo, cut in two and laid in the sand. Surrounding them is Blythe’s collection of oddities, a sea of computer parts, hovercars, damaged synthetic models, caged animals, and a hundred other things Sam has never seen before. The largest item is a personal spacecraft. Tight and compact like a hovercar, but with a wingspan twice it’s length. It could fly them anywhere on or off the Sioux Moon. 

“There, we can steal that,” Dean says, “Come on.”

An alarm goes off and a group of robed men with their blasters raised pour out of a nearby silo. As quick as they can, Sam and Dean hobble towards the spacecraft. To Sam’s surprise it’s not even locked. The doors on either side of the cockpit open on Dean’s command and they collapse inside. The robed men with blasters are closing in but Dean is already active at the controls, working them with ease despite missing a hand. He starts the engines, enters coordinates, and raises the shields just in time to deflect any lasers shot at them.

“Is there anything you don’t know how to drive?” Sam smiles, admiring.

The craft shakes, begins to move. Slowly, it lifts into the air, legs retracting, wingspan widening. 

“A Chevy Impala 3967 Cruiser,” Dean says. “My dad used to have one just like her. His pride and joy. Shame for her to be parked out here in the sun and the sand with her intrusion shields down. Bet the bastard didn’t even know how.”

“Good thing,” Sam points out. “Or else we’d still be running. Or in your case, hopping.”

"Bitch," Dean shoots back with a laugh. Pauses, expecting a reply. Disappointed when all he gets is a blank smile.

They rise into the air, above the city of Ka’arm. Below, Blythe’s halved silo is alight with flames, smoke pouring out each end. The men in robes abandon their attempt to shoot down Sam and Dean to desperately put out the fire which meant, for the time, they weren’t likely to be followed. But Sam is still nervous about what Blythe said.

“Niveus put out some sort of advertisement or warning for us,” he informs Dean. “That guy knew who I was. Who _ you _ were.”

“I know who he was too,” Dean grunts. “Sonofabitch tried to buy my arm and leg off of me, and when I said no, tried to steal it. Shot him in the eye for the attempt. Guess he was still sore about it.”

Their hovercar flies out of Ka’arm, and into the desert. When they’re finally out of range from the Pleasure Suite mainframe, Sam breathes a sigh of relief.

“Here,” Dean says. Pulling off his shirt—battered, worn and bloodstained as it is—he gives it to Sam to dress himself. But instead of wearing it, Sam holds it to his chest like a blanket.

“I’m sorry Sam,” Dean begins, struggling. “I fucked up back there. I didn’t know Blythe had that kind of tech and when I think about what he almost did—”

“It’s okay,” Sam interrupts. Quiet. Firm. “He’s the bad guy, it’s what they do. But you’re the good guy and you always come to my rescue.”

Dean is silent. His face, awash with guilt.

“Now I finally understand what they did to me,” Sam says, clutching Dean’s shirt in his hands. “When you explained it before it was like a bad story, happening to someone else. But when I was lying there with that man, unable to move, that’s when I realized how much they had taken away. How much they had carved out of Sam Winchester. And how little of him is left.”

Sam struggles, tears welling in his eyes. Dean looks on, gutted.

“I want to know everything about him,” Sam insists. “About Sam Winchester. I want to know who he was, and what he liked. What he read. What he ate. I want to know every little detail of his life. But most of all—and this is important, Dean—I don’t want you to lie about it anymore. About him. Or you. I’ve already lost enough. I deserve that, at least.”

Ka’arm is a tiny dot on the horizon behind them. The red desert swallows them both. Dean glances at the coordinates on the dashboard, the digital map marking their progress.

“There’s a friend's house here, on the east side of the moon,” Dean says. “When we get there, I promise, I’ll tell you everything.”


End file.
